IDA is strongly urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
to act against the Cole Brothers Circus for its apparent role in
an elaborate scheme to evade federal animal welfare law by
helping Florida-based animal handler Lance Ramos Kollman exhibit
animals, even though his license was revoked by the agency.

Since losing his license in 2009 for horrific violations of
the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), including animal deaths, a cast of
shady characters has been playing a complicated shell game to
keep Kollman illegally in business. The USDA confiscated the
elephant Ned from Kollman two years ago, after IDA discovered
Ned’s horribly emaciated condition and filed a complaint with
the agency.

Throughout 2010, the Cole Brothers Circus has been showing a
group of nine big cats who were "owned" by Kollman but exhibited
(and sometimes purportedly "owned") by a procession of
unlicensed and inexperienced individuals, presenting a danger to
the public and to the animals.

The USDA is currently seeking to revoke the licenses of the
exhibitors who have been helping Kollman, but so far the Cole
Brothers Circus (which does not have its own license) has
escaped any accountability or responsibility for its actions. In
fact, this circus has a history of AWA violations and of working
with abusive animals handlers.

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